Hi. I live in Cape Coral/Fort Myers area. I moved here from Virginia in 2002. If you are retiring, I would say this is a great area. If you are working and still raising a family, IMHO I would move further north...but that's just my opinion.
I can tell you the major employers here are Lee Memorial Health System which now owns all our local hospitals and the Lee County school system. We have no major industry except tourism. Here is a link to the local newspaper
news-press.com | The News-Press | Southwest Florida news, community, entertainment, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Southwest Florida, Florida If you are looking for work be aware there is definitely a "season" here. During "season" (winter) a lot of places get busy and hire but the work is temporary (employers may not tell you that
). During the summer most places slow down to a crawl and people get their hours cut or laid off.
The failing economy hit this area extremely hard. The housing market fell apart here. People are still walking away from their homes and we have a ton of brand new builder homes sitting empty that aren't selling. So you can pretty much pick up a brand a brand new 3br 2bath home for under $100,000.
Property taxes haven't went down and home owners insurance is still high. Last year my premiums were $1600 for my very modest 3br/2bath home built in 04....buy an older home and you may not be able to get insurance.
On the up side if you like warm weather and sun then this may be the place for you. Today was 80 degrees.
You won't have days of gray and gloomy weather like up north. You can go to the beach all year around, there are a ton of golf courses, and if you like to watch baseball the Red Sox have their spring training camp here. There are a ton of gorgeous gated communities with golfing, swimming, tennis, and social clubs. There are some very good private schools for the kids if you can afford it. Other than that I think it's pretty laid back...definitely not city life and not much to do. I usually go over to Miami/Fort Lauderdale or Tampa.